The Central part of the city, a place where all upper middle level and large level families reside, is a place where the security of the city is maximum and considering the events that has been taking place in the past few days, the city guards were vigilant in their duty. Every main street had a team assigned while every side street had at least 2 guards patrolling.
The Central part of the city was divided into two segments. The outer segment of the Central part of the city was filled with high end shops and the city guards were restricted to this area while the residential area, which was in the inner segment was guarded by the personal forces of each family. This way the residential segment could be said to have maximum protection in case of any invasion from any angle against the Golem city.
Currently in a carriage with the symbol of an eagle covering itself with its wings could be seen cruising towards the Central part of the city. This carriage was belonged to the Hall family and Sean and Liliana were seated on one side of the carriage while Cornelia was seated on the other side.
Sean kept quiet and observed the scenery outside while remaining vigilant by sending a few small sized drones secretly and used the system to control the drone and recieving footage through the system. There were also laptops provided by the system, however it was too much hassle to look at the laptop for footage before two strangers. He preferred to keep the technology which he had a secret and reveal only little every once in a while as his technology was the one thing which gave him an advantage over others who had better background, better aptitude etc. While he kept an eye on the surrounding which was slowly becoming more posh as the roads were getting closer to the Central part of the city, his eye was also on the footage he received from the system from a higher vantage point. One was covering behind the carriage to see if there were anyone following the carriage while the other was ahead of the carriage and in the shopping district where their destination was to see how the situation was.
While checking behind the carriage, from aerial view point he could see two black robed guys following the carriage by jumping from one tree to another or jumping from one building to another. Judging by their speed which was at a sedated pace and their all black robe which matched the guards brought by Cornelia, Sean deduced that they were Cornelia's guards. The situation in the Central part of the city was also normal and bustling in the shopping district as a steady flow of mercenaries or young masters flowed in and out of these high end shops. Apart from that, there was a sharp contrast in the infrastructure such as the roads, street lights, buildings and sceneries between the Central part of the city with the rest.
Soon the carriage entered the shopping district and stopped at a shop which had the board symbolising that it was a blacksmith shop along with a symbol of a sleek Japanese Katana which Liliana introduced to Sean as a shop belonging to Blackwood family. Liliana proceeded to explain the difference between the shops in the other parts of the city to this shop. It seems like the shops on the other parts of the cities were owned by mercenary guild or small and medium level clans and are frequented by small mercenary guilds and small families and city guards while this guild only had large and upper medium level families and guilds as it's customer. Liliana also said that Carmella also had a contract with this shop and all the members of the guild can get their weapons from this shop while the guild would take care of the expenses.
Sean nodded his head expressing his understanding and walked to open the door of the shop to allow Cornelia and Liliana in before following from behind. "Boy you need to show some emotions, and stop replying with a dead pan face". Hearing this comment Cornelia laughed while Sean did not have much change in his emotions and just nodded his head once again. Looking at this Liliana thought ' Great, now I have to partner up with a emo-faced brat. Though he is handsome for his age, he lacks any expression in his face. Looks like he needs to be taught how to socialise. What a pain '
If Sean knew what she was thinking, he would have laughed. Once they were inside Sean allowed Liliana to accompany Cornelia while he placed himself in a position which gave him the proper view of the entry and exit of the shop while his drone was patrolling the area to keep a look on the surrounding. Liliana was surprised by his professionalism as she watched from time to time and looked that he barely moved from his position while maintaining vigilance and having a constant eye towards entry and exit and thought ' Has he done such escort missions before? Well this reduces the necessity to teach him the basics '.
Liliana thought that she would have to teach him how to perform escort mission as having good combat experience alone is not enough. One needs to have excellent observation skills along with memory to lookout for possible trackers and assassins. One should also have a great presence of mind and awareness of situation and always think of clients safety while acting as an escort rather than killing the attacker. If need arises to kill the attacker in order for client to survive, then the escort should also be ready to engage in such battle, however where engaging in such battle could possibly injure the client and a path of retreat is present, then the safety of the client should be prioritised.
Cornelia placed orders for shadow boots which increases speed as it was made out of shadow panther and an armoured plate made out of armoured lion. She also proceeded to buy a set of throwing knives made out of Black steel and a set of Black steel needles as hidden weapon. The entire shopping continued for more than an hour during which Liliana came every once in a while to check whether Sean wanted to switch with her, but Sean shook his head and asked Liliana to not worry and continue to guard Cornelia.
Soon Sean's group moved to an Alchemist shop which was according to Liliana belonged to Wilson clan. Unlike the blacksmith shop which only had one floor, the Alchemist shop had four floors. The first three floors had pills, potions, poisons respectively while the fourth floor had three separate rooms for concoction of pills, potions and poisons. Cornelia went floor by floor to buy various pills, potions and poisons while Liliana guarded her rear and Sean remained on the lookout. Liliana was extremely satisfied with Sean's performance as he did not make a fuss and stood on guard vigilantly despite Liliana asking to switch with him. The reason Sean gave to Liliana was that she was the main force while he was just a backup so it was better for him to take the mental toll while Liliana preserved her energy in case a fight broke out.
--------- Meanwhile in Artemis City --------
There was a huge commotion in the Artemis city and the entire city was in complete lockdown with city guards and private mercenaries roaming vigilantly on the lookout and every now and then a small group of guards would enter and exit various houses in the residential complex. Whether they be the mercenaries or city guards, they were all wearing the symbol of Hall family. Be it the normal citizens or people from small and medium clan, none dared to complain or try to resist while conducting search on the premises as Hall family not only ruled the Artemis city, all the small and medium sized clans were affiliated with the Hall family and currently Hall family had received an attack and many rumours flew within the city.
Some said that an entire part of Hall family main mansion was burnt, some said that the core members of the Hall family had been assassinated, while others were ridiculous enough to say that one of the young ladies of Hall family had eloped and rumors even pointed it to the eldest miss who was supposed to be married of to the crown prince eloped with a young guard as they were in love with each other since childhood and the eldest miss did not want to marry the crown prince. The rumours were getting prepostrous every moment and the guard's aggressive attitude did not help it in any way.
Contrary to the show which was going on outside, the Hall family main residence was unusually quiet as the main members of the warriors faction of the Hall family gathered in the main hall and was headed by Gabriel Hall, who was the current head of the warrior faction. Every large families including the Hall family generally dip their toes on all three styles of training and the main force predominantly are comprised of mages while Warrior faction is for building relationship with other families and have a share in the royal court while Knight faction generally is used to create a connection with the churches. Large clans like Blackwood clan which focus solely on cultivating warriors were relatively rare as Mages were the true powerhouses in this world and having them as the main force consolidates the foundation of every large family.
All the main members of the Warrior faction had assembled in front of Gabriel and could be seen whispering with each other. Though some seemed genuinely worried, the others had a floating smile on their face. Soon the butler who served Gabriel Hall came in and whispered something in the ear of Gabriel before leaving.
Finally, not being able to handle the suspense a member from the warriors faction who was genuinely worried hurriedly asked "Gabriel what is going on. There was a loud explosion and after inspection I saw fire from Cornelia's house. What happened to her? Is she alright?"
All the members looked at Gabriel intently to read any emotion from his eyes only to be met with a calm and deep eyes as he said "Cornelia is fine. Me and Cornelia came up with a plan to send Cornelia secretly back to capital while she is accompanied by her shadow guards. This is a strategy to avoid being attacked by the second prince from start of the journey and making him wear us out. The Cornelia whom you have been seeing for the past 1 month is a fake wearing a transfiguration mask".
The members who heard this were shocked, especially the one's who had a gloating face became unsightly. "Why were we not informed of this?" shouted a member.
"That's right. Are you perhaps suspecting that we would leak the news" asked another member.
Everyone knew that Cornelia was Gabriel's daughter and had expected him to send her to first prince stacked with guards but never expected him to send her secretly. This lack of trust from Gabriel made the members to quickly grow rowdy.